“I don’t think it’s really that kind of trouble Mr. Grey means,” Cordell said wryly. “Suffice it to say, there was no vice in Anthony’s schooldays, merely mischievous pranks. He was never expelled or even sent home in disgrace.”
Anthony’s nostrils flared as he stared at Solomon. “It was my father who was the victim of murder. Why are you trying to blacken his name and family?”
“We are not,” Constance said quickly. “Everyone has things in their past they regret to one degree or another. Your father was singularly well liked and we are having difficulty identifying any motive for what happened to him. We know he would have protected you at all costs, so we needed to discover any indiscretions associated with you, too.”
“And now you’ve done so,” Cordell said. It wasn’t a question, but Constance answered anyway.
“I believe we have.”
Bella said, “We should go back to Mama.”
Han escorted her back, Anthony at their heels. The boy glanced back once.
“Well, my sleuth-hounds?” murmured Lady Griz, and they turned to face her and her sister. “Azalea has something that may interest you.”
They walked a little further away from the slowly melting throngs in the churchyard.
“I heard it, of all unlikely places, from my mother,” Lady Azalea said, “but I had to ask very specifically, and I would not like the gossip to spread, particularly at such a time as this when the poor woman has enough to deal with.”
“Which poor woman?” Constance asked.
“Mrs. St. John,” Griz murmured.
Lady Azalea looked about her once more. “Apparently, before she was even out, she fell madly in love with an unsuitable and entirely unscrupulous man. She eloped with him, though her family caught up with them and brought her home before they could be married. It was all hushed up and she was duly presented at court, and within the first few weeks of the Season was engaged to Terrence St. John.”
“If it was hushed up,” Solomon said, “how does your mother know about it?”
“Because she’s the duchess,” Azalea said wryly. “And because she was part of the hushing-up process. Jacintha was said to be with her while she was, in fact, with Madly.”
“Madly?” Constance repeated. She had heard the name before.
“Jason Madly, a younger son of Lord Darroway. Though young himself, only twenty or so, he was going to the devil long before he met Jacintha, but apparently he could be a charming dog when he made the effort. There were no duels, but Madly did vanish from Polite Society.”
“Do you know where we can find him?”
“He was never—er…rehabilitated into Society,” Griz said. “But my least-reputable brother has come across him once ortwice in low gambling dens where you’re as likely to get your throat cut as your purse. So he’s probably still in London.” She fished inside her reticule and came up with a scrap of paper, which Constance took from her. “These are the places Forsythe encountered him, but I wouldn’t go without someone to watch your back.”
Constance did not say she had been inside both places on the list, though not for some years. Nor that she recalled now how she knew Madly. She had refused him access to her old establishment, and the current one.
“Apart from that youthful indiscretion,” Azalea said, “her life has been a model of rectitude, according to Her Grace. So has her husband’s. So please be careful how you use this.”
“We will,” Constance assured her.
“One more thing,” Griz said. “About the cost of those gowns? Azalea says no one would pay such a price without genuine diamonds sewn thickly into the fabric.”
*
“Veronique could somehowhave got hold of the old scandal,” Constance said eagerly as the carriage trundled back toward the Silver and Grey office. “St. John paid to protect his wife’s reputation, and his children’s futures.”
“Then why kill him?”
“Perhaps she didn’t. Perhaps she confronted Madly and Madly did it.”
“Why?” Solomon repeated.
Constance scowled. “I don’t know. From what I remember of Madly, he was more of a beater than a poisoner.”
“You know him?” Solomon said, startled.
